Every Woman Knows a Secret

At the foot of Danny’s bed Lizzie stopped. She drew in her breath with a sharp gasp, hand to her mouth, staring at the bandages and the tubes.

‘Oh God, Jess. He looks so hurt.’

Jess tried to reassure her. For her own benefit as well as Lizzie’s she said firmly, ‘No. It’s just all the technology; it looks worse than it is because we can’t understand what it’s for. He moved his hand in mine, and stretched out his arms. I told you.’

Apprehensively Lizzie tiptoed closer. She put her hand over Danny’s, but he did not move. She sat down, and Jess drew up a stool next to her. The nurse circled around them to the other side of the bed, unclipped a bag filled with dark blood-stained urine and replaced it with an empty one. To Jess and Lizzie she was sympathetic, but Danny was her concern. Even his mother was irrelevant here.

On the train, Beth had been in a limbo. She had left London and Sam behind her, the monotony and the contradictory knife-sharp intervals of happiness that made up her everyday life, and she hardly dared to imagine what she would find at the hospital. On the phone after breaking the news Jess had tried to reassure her, but the attempt was a weak one. Beth interrupted, too sharply. ‘I’ll see for myself when I get there. Don’t take up any more time.’

After she had hung up she bit her lip regretfully. Even today, it was too easy for the two of them to wrong-foot each other. Fighting down a queasy surge of anxiety and guilt, Beth dialled her office and left a message on her boss’s overnight answering machine to say what had happened. She packed a bag and headed for the station.

On the way north she huddled into her seat in her damp raincoat, staring out of the train window at grey sidings and fields and factories. Instead of Danny, because that was too fearful, she thought about Sam. She spent too much time thinking about Sam, she knew that, but the central question never diminished in urgency.

Would he leave his wife for her?

Beth had been having an affair with a married man for more than a year. Originally, in her second job after secretarial college, Beth had been Sam Clark’s secretary. He was forty to her twenty-two, the good-looking and urbane editorial director of a publishing house, and within three months of her arrival in his office they had become lovers. He had taken her to a book launch party after work one evening, then to a restaurant, and – much later – to a hotel, because in those days Beth’s flat was shared with a friend from college. The next day, back on opposite sides of their desks, Beth had been surprised to remember her compliance in all this. But Sam was used to getting what he wanted, and Beth was deeply flattered to discover that what he apparently wanted was herself. Within days, she had fallen incontrovertibly in love with him.

There had been difficulties from the beginning, of course. Sam’s job was a demanding one, and his wife and young family took up almost all the rest of his time. Beth had to be content with the few hours a week that he could spare for her, after fulfilling all his other obligations. But she knew that these hours were what mattered most to him. The handful of people at work who knew about the affair seemed unsurprised by it, yet Beth had judged it best to sacrifice the pleasure of being near him all day in favour of the discretion of a different job. With Sam’s glowing recommendation she had moved on to the rights department of a rival publisher, a job that suited her well. She was on the way to becoming modestly successful. Sam had helped her to find a little flat of her own, in a suburban north London red-brick terrace. The relationship that had seemed so breathtaking at first had settled almost into a painful routine.

Of course Sam would leave his wife; to doubt that was to doubt her entire life. But when? When would he tell Sadie the truth? Beth’s bones felt brittle with the strain of waiting for it to happen, before everything else in her life could begin. She had grown thin, and her skin seemed to stretch too tightly over her face.

The train pulled in to Ditchley station. Nothing looked any different since her last visit home, in the summer. To her relief, a line of taxis waited outside the blackened stone entrance. On the way to the big Midland Hospital she gazed at the numbingly familiar streets without seeing a yard of them, only willing the traffic to move faster. She was afraid of what she would find, but longed for the slow journey to be over. The Asian driver tried to chat to her, then gave up after a glance in the mirror revealed that there were glassy tears on his fare’s cheeks.

At the doors of the IT unit, a nurse intercepted Beth and led her into the waiting room. Beth saw her mother sitting with Lizzie. Jess’s body was rigid and her face was transparently pale except for black shadows under her eyes. With a wash of sympathy that was still tainted by resentment Beth thought, This is the worst for her. If it was me lying in there instead of Danny she would be unhappy, but she wouldn’t look like this. Always, Danny was the one.

She felt sometimes that she had made her escape to London just to avoid this simple truth.

As they jumped up Lizzie saw the pleading, hungry, uncertain look that Beth darted at her mother. The two women went to her and held her between them.

‘Mum, what’s going to happen?’

Jess hugged her close. ‘We don’t know yet. They’re doing everything. Everyone keeps saying so. We’re waiting to see the neurosurgery consultant after his round.’

‘I got here as quickly as I could. It took for ever.’

‘It’s all right. There’s no change. I’m so glad you’re here,’ Jess said, as she had to Lizzie. She stood with her daughter at arm’s length, studying her face, then touched her cheeks with her fingertips. ‘You’ve been crying.’

‘I’m okay now I’m here. I want to see him.’

‘We have to wait until after the surgeon’s round.’

The scope of the waiting was only just becoming plain to them. Every minute that painfully stretched into an hour had to be waited through.

‘Is Dad coming?’

Jess nodded. Ian’s response had been immediate. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can get a flight.’ He loved Danny, of course.

At last Beth stood beside the bed. Dispassionately the machines did their work. Then she leaned close so her cheek almost touched his and whispered, ‘Dan. It’s me. It’s Beth, can you hear me?’ When the only response was the sound of the respirator and flickering traces of the monitors she straightened up again.

Looking across at her mother and aunt she thought for the millionth time how alike they remained, even though they had evolved so differently. They were close in a way that excluded everyone else; in the whole world only Danny was more important to Jess than her sister was. Almost all her life, Beth had understood that with her mother she came a poor third.

Now she said coolly, ‘Can I talk to him on my own for ten minutes?’

Jess was going to protest but Lizzie restrained her with a touch on the arm.

‘Come with me, Jess. We’ll get a coffee or something.’

After they had gone Beth sat down on a stool at the bedside. She held Danny’s hand.

To begin with ‘I’m sorry’ was all she could think of to say.

It was only recently she had begun to think of her brother as an ally instead of a rival. When they were children Danny had always been quick and handsome and strong. She had been shy and serious, lacking the self-confidence that Danny revelled in. In everything except schoolwork she had been slower and weaker. She had longed fiercely to be his equal, but in Jess’s eyes she never could be. Her mother had shielded her from his mockery and bullying, and defended her against the world, but Beth knew she was never admired the way her brother was.

‘Mummy’s girl,’ Danny used to jeer at her.

But it was the opposite of the truth. Beth was closer to her father, and Jess was eternally seduced by Danny’s bright, careless energy. She forgave her son everything, even though he was often in trouble.

Beth thought of these things as she held Danny’s hand and tried to convey to him that none of them mattered now.

After Beth had left home, Danny and she had begun to grow close in a way they had never approached before. It was as if, once their parents’ uncomfortable marriage had ended, the two of them had been set free to like each other without competing. Danny had lately even been down to stay with her in her flat in London. She had taken him to the theatre, and he had taken her clubbing.

‘We had a good time, didn’t we?’ she asked him aloud. ‘We can do it again. I won’t complain about techno music if you don’t complain about boring theatrical crap.’

‘Can he hear me?’ she asked the nurse.

‘We believe all our patients can hear.’

Beth fixed her eyes on his waxy face. He seemed almost hidden by the tubes and bandages.

She whispered urgently to him, ‘Come on, Dan. Come back. Don’t leave me alone now, after all, after everything.’

After examining Danny the consultant took the three women aside.

‘I’m afraid he isn’t responding very well,’ he said gravely.

‘What does that mean?’ Jess asked.

‘His reactions to stimuli are less marked than they were last night. The outlook may not be very bright. I wish I could tell you more, or something different, but for the moment we can only watch him and wait.’

Jess looked straight into the man’s eyes.

‘You are doing everything you can?’

‘Everything.’

Unable to bear the familiar confines of his room any longer, Rob went out into the rain. Exhaustion and hunger, as well as shock, began to make him feel disorientated; he knew that last night he had been under arrest, that today he must go to the police station with a solicitor. There was a duty solicitor available; the police had informed him of that. But some independent instinct made him want to appoint his own legal representative.

He stood on the corner of the street, measuring in his mind the distance he would have to walk into the centre of town. It was quite a long way. In his head there were repeating images of his van smashed into the bridge, of Danny lying on the verge. All Rob’s tools for work were in the back of the van; what would happen to them? Even as he thought of this he was ashamed that he should consider it worth worrying about.